Error when loading cookies into a Python request session

Cookie

The Cookie HTTP request header contains stored HTTP cookie previously sent by the server with the Set-Cookie header. A HTTP cookie is a small piece of data that a server sends to the user’s web browser. The browser may store the cookies and send it back with the next request to the same server. Typically, to tell if two requests came from the same browser, keeping the user logged in.


Demonstration using Selenium

To demonstrate the usage of cookies using Selenium we have stored the cookies using once the user had logged into the website http://demo.guru99.com/test/cookie/selenium_aut.php. In the next step, we opened the same website, adding the cookies and was able to land as a logged in user.

  • Code Block to store the cookies:

    from selenium import webdriver
    import pickle
    
    options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
    options.add_argument("start-maximized")
    options.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches", ["enable-automation"])
    options.add_experimental_option('useAutomationExtension', False)
    driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
    driver.get('http://demo.guru99.com/test/cookie/selenium_aut.php')
    driver.find_element_by_name("username").send_keys("abc123")
    driver.find_element_by_name("password").send_keys("123xyz")
    driver.find_element_by_name("submit").click()
    pickle.dump( driver.get_cookies() , open("cookies.pkl","wb"))
    
  • Code Block to use the stored cookies for automatic authentication:

    from selenium import webdriver
    import pickle
    
    options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
    options.add_argument("start-maximized")
    options.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches", ["enable-automation"])
    options.add_experimental_option('useAutomationExtension', False)
    driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
    driver.get('http://demo.guru99.com/test/cookie/selenium_aut.php')
    cookies = pickle.load(open("cookies.pkl", "rb"))
    for cookie in cookies:
        driver.add_cookie(cookie)
    driver.get('http://demo.guru99.com/test/cookie/selenium_cookie.php')
    

Demonstration using Requests

To demonstrate usage of cookies using and we have accessed the site https://www.google.com, added a new dictionary of cookies:

{'name':'my_own_cookie','value': 'debanjan' ,'domain':'.stackoverflow.com'}

Next, we have used the same requests session to send another request which was successful as follows:

  • Code Block:

    import requests
    
    s1 = requests.session()
    s1.get('https://www.google.com')
    print("Original Cookies")
    print(s1.cookies)
    print("==========")
    cookie = {'name':'my_own_cookie','value': 'debanjan' ,'domain':'.stackoverflow.com'}
    s1.cookies.update(cookie)
    print("After new Cookie added")
    print(s1.cookies)
    
  • Console Output:

    Original Cookies
    <RequestsCookieJar[<Cookie 1P_JAR=2020-01-21-14 for .google.com/>, <Cookie NID=196=NvZMMRzKeV6VI1xEqjgbzJ4r_3WCeWWjitKhllxwXUwQcXZHIMRNz_BPo6ujQduYCJMOJgChTQmXSs6yKX7lxcfusbrBMVBN_qLxLIEah5iSBlkdBxotbwfaFHMd-z5E540x02-YZtCm-rAIx-MRCJeFGK2E_EKdZaxTw-StRYg for .google.com/>]>
    ==========
    After new Cookie added
    <RequestsCookieJar[<Cookie domain=.stackoverflow.com for />, <Cookie name=my_own_cookie for />, <Cookie value=debanjan for />, <Cookie 1P_JAR=2020-01-21-14 for .google.com/>, <Cookie NID=196=NvZMMRzKeV6VI1xEqjgbzJ4r_3WCeWWjitKhllxwXUwQcXZHIMRNz_BPo6ujQduYCJMOJgChTQmXSs6yKX7lxcfusbrBMVBN_qLxLIEah5iSBlkdBxotbwfaFHMd-z5E540x02-YZtCm-rAIx-MRCJeFGK2E_EKdZaxTw-StRYg for .google.com/>]>
    

Conclusion

Clearly, the newly added dictionary of cookies {'name':'my_own_cookie','value': 'debanjan' ,'domain':'.stackoverflow.com'} is pretty much in use within the second request.


Passing Selenium Cookies to Python Requests

Now, if your usecase is to passing Selenium Cookies to Python Requests, you can use the following solution:

from selenium import webdriver
import pickle
import requests

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
options.add_argument("start-maximized")
options.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches", ["enable-automation"])
options.add_experimental_option('useAutomationExtension', False)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
driver.get('http://demo.guru99.com/test/cookie/selenium_aut.php')
driver.find_element_by_name("username").send_keys("abc123")
driver.find_element_by_name("password").send_keys("123xyz")
driver.find_element_by_name("submit").click()

# Storing cookies through Selenium
pickle.dump( driver.get_cookies() , open("cookies.pkl","wb"))
driver.quit()

# Passing cookies to Session
session = requests.session()  # or an existing session
with open('cookies.pkl', 'rb') as f:
    session.cookies.update(pickle.load(f))
search_requests = session.get('https://www.google.com/')
print(session.cookies)

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